Hill Dicks to cut jobs and restructure teams as revenues remain flat
Hill Dickinson is launching a review of its UK business which is expected to lead to job cuts, as the firm prepares to post broadly flat revenues for the 2012-13 financial year. The review, which will begin next month, will focus on the firm's range of services and its geographical reach, with the move coming in response to "prevailing market conditions", according to the firm.
April 29, 2013 at 10:47 AM
3 minute read
Hill Dickinson is launching a review of its UK business which is expected to lead to job cuts, as the firm prepares to post broadly flat revenues for the 2012-13 financial year.
The review, which will begin next month, will focus on the firm's range of services and its geographical reach, with the move coming in response to "prevailing market conditions", according to the firm.
The firm, which has UK offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Chester as well as two bases in London, expects to restructure a number of teams, with job cuts set to affect both support staff and fee-earners, while a reduction in partner count and office closures have also not been ruled out.
The exact number of employees affected will not be known until after the review, which the firm hopes to complete by the end of July. Some staff may also be redeployed to different offices in an effort to mitigate the number of necessary job cuts. RollOnFriday last week reported the possibility of "significant redundancies" at the firm.
Hill Dickinson's growth during 2012-13 has been hit by the struggling UK commercial market; however, the firm has been encouraged by its performance in its key areas such as health, marine and insurance.
Managing partner Peter Jackson told Legal Week: "As is consistent with market conditions, we will be taking a look at our business model to ensure we are offering the client what they need. The unfortunate but inevitable consequence of this will be some job losses, but until we have completed the analysis and consultation it is difficult to say exactly how many – if we can redeploy people, we will.
"Marine, health and large parts of our insurance business are doing well but the UK-facing domestic commercial market is still suffering and we are not alone in restructuring our business as a result of this.
"We'll be taking a look at our geographic spread – for instance, do we need three offices in the northwest or need to offer all services from them? I'm not saying we don't, but it's something the review will be looking into.
"However, this is not a retrenchment and we will continue to look to expand in all of our sectors. We recently increased our insurance team in Manchester and Sheffield and are always on the lookout for appropriate lawyers that can be of benefit the business."
Outside of the UK, Hill Dickinson also has offices in Greece and Singapore.
The firm is set to join a number of UK practices to have made job cuts this year, including DLA Piper, CMS Cameron McKenna, Eversheds, Clyde & Co and Olswang. More recently, Pinsent Masons announced it is to cut up to 13 employment fee earners after two rounds of back office layoffs, while DWF recently laid off 38 support staff following its acquisitions of Cobbetts.
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